I can’t even stomach drama from men anymore–thank you lord for bad relationships in the past! I’m just tired. Maybe it’s my age. Maybe it’s dealing with Aidan and all his teams and his intense needs every day. Maybe it’s just that I think *I* should be the drama in a relationship? Call me old-fashioned. I am enough to handle, especially on a day when I have been fighting for a client or Aidan. The purpose of this post is to talk about my ex and our relationship in communicating about a child who can’t communicate.
My ex-husband and I have a convoluted history but we try to deal with our son’s issues together. However he has a way (perhaps it’s because I suspect he is also on the AU spectrum) of ignoring problems and hyperfocusing on things that don’t even matter. This this weekend he didn’t show up (via conference call) for a parent training I had set up for for Aidan. That annoyed me to no end.
Maybe because it’s one of the reasons I left him–his denial over the disability and always having to remind him of things that were important to Aidan’s therapy and lessons. It definitely triggered something in me. Then he called back about it when he wanted to (the 25 mile drive from the small town he lives in to the big city of Austin lol).
But I was busy with our son’s therapists at that point so that didn’t work…long story short, by the time I was able to talk to him later that evening, I was not in the best of moods. By then my son was sick and asked for his dad and we called and no answer. I left messages and texted him. Then we went to bed. When he called later, he’d been out with his girlfriend drinking and he began harassing me and yelling at me about leaving Texas, leaving him 3x, and so on and so forth. Oh. No. He. Didn’t.
I’ve been through a LOT the past year as anyone who knows me can tell you. Some of it great, some of it terrible, and most of it confusing. Yes, yes it’s just made me stronger. (By the way, I think I might like to be a weaker person for a while…I’m just saying.) Anyway, the tongue lashing my ex-husband and I gave each other was unhealthy and really unnecessary. And I was just done. t I cut off most communication: we are only talking via email now. Easier, more distant, and not too painful. Of course he didn’t listen to me at first and called and texted and even tried to Skype. Sigh.
I’m really trying to be positive about Aidan’s much- slower-than-average accomplishments and when he only has me, I have to protect myself and my emotions. And if that includes cutting people out or limiting contact with me, so be it. I have to get this kid to adulthood. We are working on teaching him lathering soap for god’s sake, a team of 6 of us! I had someone come today to bathe him before church (thank you regional center). And in church, I considered it a success because he only squeezed the breath out of me six times, we only had to walk out twice, and he only yelled “Cheeseburger!” once during the mass.
I hate that I have to communicate with my ex-husband so much about meds, therapies, $$. But I also think that email is best right now so that he and I don’t resort to attacking each other in times of stress. It takes away too much from my spirit doing that. I am almost back to normal Gloria, and am enthusiastic and happy about my projects even in the midst of raising Aidan alone daily. My ex wants to move here with his girlfriend, and hopefully he will, but my task is to worry about that when it happens and get through the day as painlessly as possible. It’s hard to know how and when to let an ex in, even when you are good friends and coparenting–and like us, because Aidan will never be his own guardian, will be coparenting together in the true sense of it till the day we die. That doesn’t mean you have to deal with everything, however.
Someone told me once that I was high-energy and drew people to me easily but because of that very reason I had to be extra-careful with who I had around me because that was more opportunity for others to take that energy from me and drain me, my energy just flows out and can be siphoned off easily. That is so acccurate. I am in the midst of preserving my energy and spirit, and carefully discriminating with who’s allowed in.
Divorcing Autism 